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Sunday, August 14, 2016

Mike Butler: Littlewood treaty to disappear

The document that is most likely the final English draft from which the Treaty of Waitangi was translated into Maori will quietly be buried in archives when a new exhibition of “iconic constitutional documents” opens next year at the National Library opposite Parliament Buildings.

New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell is taking Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne to task over the exclusion of the Busby February 4 document from the treaty display.
The “iconic documents” for display in the He Tohu - A declaration. A treaty. A petition exhibition include:

• The 1835 Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand written by James Busby.

• All nine signed sheets of the Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti o Waitangi will be displayed in the new exhibition, including the sheet in the English language.

• The 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition.

The display aims to provide “accurate and up-to-date information on the three documents”, according a profile document on the exhibition.

A key focus of the exhibition is educating young New Zealanders – with a focus on 10-15 year olds – about the history and on-going significance of these three documents to our national story. A guiding principle of the exhibition is that by better understanding our past, we create a brighter future.

The treaty is described as:

a written agreement between the British Crown (Queen Victoria) and representatives of iwi and hapū. After signing, New Zealand became a colony of Britain and Maori became British subjects. However, Maori and the British colonists had different understandings and expectations of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Many Maori saw it as a creating a balance of authority, a confirmation of rangatiratanga. They understood the mana of the land would be retained, and kawanatanga (government) would sort out those Europeans who had proved to be troublesome.

As always, the devil is in the detail. Here are a few points to consider when pondering the significance of the exclusion of the Busby February 4 from a display of New Zealand’s “iconic constitutional documents”.

1. The 512 chiefs who signed the treaty signed the Maori text.

2. The Maori text has a single word that differs from the Busby February 4 draft, which is the inclusion in article 3 of the word “maori”, yes, lower case “m”, a word that meant “ordinary” in 1840.

3. If you want to know exactly what the treaty in Maori says and you don’t read Maori, it’s all there in the Busby February 4 document.

4. The only time that the so-called official English text was used at a treaty signing was at Waikato heads on April 11, 1840, when Reverend Robert Maunsell collected the first five signatures on an A4 sized printed Maori text, attached that document to a much larger piece of paper that happened to be a discarded version of the treaty in English, and collected the remaining signatures on the larger paper.

5. The substantial differences between the official English text and the Maori text created scope for mischief. At 568 words, the English text is much wordier than Te Tiriti's 480 words, and many words in the English, such as “right of pre-emption” are not in the Maori.

6. The treaty was drafted in English and translated into Maori. If the Busby February 4 document was displayed next to Te Tiriti, the tens of thousands of schoolchildren who will see the He Tohu exhibition may compare the English and Maori texts and see for themselves how exact the translation is.

7. This comparison may prompt questions about the modern interpretations of the words “kawanatanga” and “rangatiratanga” when they could see that “kawanatanga” translated “sovereignty” and “rangatiratanga” translated “possession”.

Mitchell asked Dunne “what are the reasons that the 1840 Littlewood Treaty is not seen as key taonga that has shaped the nation and therefore been excluded from the Chief Archivist’s new exhibition at the National Library?”

Dunne did not directly answer. He wrote:

There are many constitutional documents under the control of the Chief Archivist, all of which are considered taonga. However, only a small number are able to be displayed in the new permanent exhibition at the National Library building. The three documents selected for display were chosen as they represent pivotal moments in the history of our nation. The Treaty of Waitangi is considered to be the founding document of New Zealand, and has exceptional preservation requirements, while the Declaration of Independence and the Women’s Suffrage Petition are key instruments of change in the history of our nation.

Lack of space is not an issue because the Busby February 4 draft Littlewood treaty is only a two-page document. It is currently on display in the Constitution Room at the National Library, although only the second page is showing. Nevertheless, as is anyone may read the parts containing the words “sovereignty” and “possession”.

One further question for Dunne -- Don't you think the final English draft from which Te Tiriti was translated should form part of a display of Treaty of Waitangi documents and if not, why not?

The story of the Littlewood treaty reads a little like the old movie Raiders of the Lost Ark in which the lost ark was found to be intentionally lost once again deep in a warehouse containing government archives.

Extensive differences between the official English text and Te Tiriti led historians to believe that the final draft had gone missing.

In 1989, John Littlewood and sister Beryl Needham found a hand-written Treaty of Waitangi text in a drawer while clearing out their mum’s house after she died. Their forebear was Henry Littlewood, a solicitor who worked in the Bay of Islands and Auckland in the 1840s, and who did work for the United States Consul of the time, James Clendon. This document became known as “the Littlewood treaty”.

Beryl Needham took the document to her local MP Bill Birch, who suggested that she should take it to the Auckland Institute and Museum for analysis, which she did, where it stayed for a year. Treaty expert Claudia Orange looked at the document, provided information about Henry Littlewood, and did no more.

The official disinterest in a discovered missing final draft of the treaty which did not include the phrase “lands and estates forests fisheries in article 2 coincided with top-level negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act 1992. This official disinterest persisted as almost all licensed forest land and associated rentals were given to tribal corporations.

Historian Donald Loveridge, who has worked for the Crown Forestry Rental Trust and treaty claimants, issued a memo on the document, in 1993, in response to a request from the Treaty Issues Team at the Crown Law Office, noting that the document "is virtually identical in all respects to the Clendon translation".

The “Clendon translation” was an English text of the treaty sent by Clendon to the United States on February 20, 1840. Clendon sent this document that looks like a copy of the Busby February 4 draft with February 6 instead of February 4 on it plus a copy of the treaty, in Maori. The covering letter referred to a “translation” without saying which document was the translation.

In 2000, Dr Phil Parkinson, a treaty researcher at National Archives, confirmed that Busby was the author of the Littlewood treaty.

The Treaty of Waitangi Information Unit commissioned Loveridge to do a full appraisal in 2006. Loveridge re-stated his view the Busby February 4 document was a back translation of the Maori text of the treaty, especially because Clendon said it was.

But Loveridge also noted that "if Clendon’s description was not correct, however – for whatever reason – the possibility would remain that the date was used intentionally, and that the Littlewood document is in fact a copy of the missing draft”.

The absence of the Busby February 4 document allows tribal interests to push the fiction that chiefs did not cede sovereignty and all they agreed to was to allow the British Governor contain unruly British settlers.

Tribalists go on to claim that the government stole the chiefs' “rangatiratanga” and caused everything that went wrong for Maori and therefore must forever pay for that.

If you are at all worried about this official perversion of our history, and the associated indoctrination, please contact your MP and demand that the Busby February 4 draft be included in the He Tohu - A declaration. A treaty. A petition exhibition.

7 comments:

ONZF
said...

When in doubt – Consult the Preamble

Both the Maori and English treaties of Waitangi were between tangata Maori and Queen Victoria for Britain to gain sovereignty of all the islands of New Zealand but over the years there has been on-going debate over the wording of both documents.

Unfortunately, people fail to read the Preamble, which in any document explains the clauses of a document if they are ambiguous or not fully understood.

The Tiriti o Waitangi states the word, “Kawanatanga” and there has been ongoing debate whether it means “sovereignty” or “governorship”. The Preamble of both treaties state, “To all places of New Zealand which may be given up now or hereafter to the Queen”, therefore, this can only mean “sovereignty”. (Official translation of the Tiriti o Waitangi for the Government of the day by Mr T E Young of the Native Department in 1869).

Maori also call themselves “tangata whenua” but the Tiriti o Waitangi states 3 times, twice in the Preamble and once in Article 3 that the chiefs who signed the Tiriti o Waitangi were “tangata Maori” and not “tangata whenua”. Over 500 “tangata Maori” chiefs acknowledged, accepted and signed the Tiriti o Waitangi as “tangata Maori”, not tangata whenua or the Indigenous People of New Zealand.

It was the “tangata Maori” that were given “The same rights as the people of England” in Article 3, not “tangata whenua” or the Indigenous people of New Zealand as they had long gone.

While Article 2 of the English version does not mention “all the people of New Zealand”, both Treaties state, “Tangata Maori would be give the same rights as the people of England…….. to their lands, their settlements and all their property”. Once the Treaty was signed, “all the people of New Zealand” came under the dependency and laws of New South Wales under one flag and one law irrespective of race, colour or creed.

Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated the 16 November 1840, our ‘true’ Founding Document and ‘first’ Constitution confirmed the above when it made New Zealand into a British Colony with its own Governor and Constitution to make laws with courts and judges to enforce those laws, but still under the watchful eye of Great Britain.

On the 26 September 1907 New Zealand became the Dominion of New Zealand with complete self-government by proclamation of King Edward VII. New Zealanders became British Subjects with British Passports.

In 1947 New Zealand adopted the Statute of Westminster that gave New Zealand complete control over its domestic as well as its foreign affairs and all the people of New Zealand became New Zealand Citizens with New Zealand Passports.

Three long debated questions answered by one simple document, the Treaty of Waitangi. Who would have guessed it was so simple after so many years of debate and so many books written!

Don't be so naive Mike. Do you think this duplicitous government so keen to give the maori party everything they ask for would want to undo the years of spin and propaganda by revealing to the public the true history and intent of the TOW?

Te Papa's staff selects and dictates what it wants the public to know!

For a number of years I have been asking Te Papa Museum to display Busby's 4 February 1840 document, the Final English draft of the Treaty of Waitangi as well as the Preamble of the Treaty but they have refused.

Since researching Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated the 16 November 1840 I have asked Te Papa to display the Royal Charter that separated New Zealand from New South Wales on the 3 May 1841 and made New Zealand into a British Colony with its own Governor and Constitution to make laws with courts and judges to enforce those laws irrespective of race, colour or creed. This occurred just 12 months after the Treaty was signed and Britain gained Sovereignty over all the islands of New Zealand and is a vital piece of New Zealand history that must be displayed for all to read and understand. It is our ‘true’ Founding Document and ‘first’ Constitution.

Te Papa has stated it does not even have a copy of the Royal Charter which is held in the Constitution Room at Archives New Zealand, Wellington.

I have informed Te Papa it has been misinforming over 1.5 million visitors a years of our true history but they refuse to include the Preamble or the Royal Charter in its displays. In desperation I wrote to Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage

Yesterday I received a letter from Mr Ralf Johnston, Manager, Heritage Policy, Ministry for Culture & Heritage explaining Te Papa dictates the history it display to its visitors. Here is the main part of his letter.

“Te Papa has no plans to redevelop its Treaty of Waitangi exhibition in the short term, although a renewal of the museum in the coming years may eventually see changes to that area. As a museum appealing to a broad international audience of all ages, Te Papa must necessary choose which aspects of New Zealand history are covered in each display. Te Papa is not and does not claim to be a comprehensive summary of New Zealand’s history, culture and environment……….It is appropriate that decisions of how to portray New Zealand history are made by Te Papa’s history curators. I trust this satisfies your request for information”.

Te Papa’s staff selects and dictates what it wants the public to know! How corrupt is that!

1. Busby's "Declaration of Independence" was/is a worthless piece of paper recognized as such at the time and only resurrected by latter-day racists to advance their agenda.

2. Next in importance to the document signed at Waitangi on 6/2/1840 is Hobson's final draft, written by Busby and dated 4/2/1840, the so-called "Littlewood Treaty", denounced by officials and racists because it belies their false history.

3. The so-called "Treaty in English" is the second and thus subsidiary page of the agreement made at Waikato Heads in April 1840 as recent forensic study shows beyond a shadow of doubt. Any significance of this piece of paper in its own right is non-existent.

4. The Queen's Royal Charter of November 1840 was a significant constitutional step and its omission is a serious default.

5. The presentation of documents selected by Te Papa and condoned by Peter Dunne is a betrayal of the history of New Zealand.

NO PARTNERSHIP OR PRINCIPLESNZ's "true and only" Treaty is the Te Reo version. This was what was presented orally to the chiefs, and this is what they agreed to. There is no English version. Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840 does not contain the Maori words for "partnership" and "principles."

First open challenge to Treatyists: point to the words “partnership” and “principles" in Te Tiriti.

This nonsense is of recent invention, and originated in what we might call "The Treaty of Wellington (aka Section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act) 1986.” Activist judges on the Court of Appeal hearing a 1987 case involving the NZ Maori Council then took Section 9’s unclarified in the statute reference to “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” to concoct “partnership” and "principles" out of thin air.

Everything the chiefs said on the lawn at Waitangi and elsewhere, as well as the words of those who refused to sign it, make it abundantly clear they were well-aware that by signing the Treaty this would place Captain Hobson in authority over them, and that behind Hobson was Queen Victoria. Reiterated at the Kohimarama Conference of 1860.

Second open challenge to Treatyists: produce a single primary source account recording the words of a chief who thought he was going into "partnership" or some kind of sovereignty-sharing arrangement with the Crown.

Eyewitness accounts of the pre-Treaty debates make it clear that none of the chiefs who signed it thought they were going into “partnership” with the Crown. Those who spoke up for Hobson also leave no doubt that they expected British sovereignty to bring lasting peace to the land, as well as protecting them from less benevolently inclined foreign powers, such as the French.

Third open challenge to Treatyists: explain why, for 147 years between 1840 and 1987 and the Court of Appeal decision in the New Zealand Maori Council Case, nobody knew that the Treaty of Waitangi was a “partnership" or some kind of sovereignty-sharing arrangement.

It was only after the Court of Appeal invented “partnership” and “principles” in 1987 that demands along these lines first surfaced. If nobody knew that the Treaty of Waitangi was a racial partnership for 147 years, that's probably because it isn’t.

TREATYIST TOFFEE TRASHEDArticle II of James Busby’s final English draft of 4 February 1840 from which Te Tiriti was translated for presentation to the chiefs at Waitangi the following day guarantees to “… the chiefs & tribes [the Natives] and to all the people of New Zealand [the Pakeha already here and the settlers yet to come] the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property …”

T E Young of the Native Department’s official back-translation of Te Tiriti undertaken in 1869 accords with the Busby final draft “…to the Chiefs, the Hapus [the Natives] and all the people of New Zealand [the Pakeha already here and the settlers yet to come], the full chieftainship of their lands, their settlements and their property.”

In signing Te Tiriti, the Maori chiefs on behalf of their tribes agreed that Maori would henceforth live under British sovereignty in order to be protected in their land and property -- from one another -- and from less-benevolently inclined foreign powers such as the French. Hence “the chiefs and the tribes.”

The Pakeha already here -- who’d bought land from Maori chiefs, built dwellings on it, cultivated it, and acquired personal property – also needed to be assured that existing land ownership and private property arrangements would be undisturbed by the incoming sovereign. Hence “all the people of New Zealand.”

Busby’s final English draft was translated into Maori by the missionary, Henry Williams, a fluent Maori speaker, who on the eve of the signing of the Treaty had lived in New Zealand for more than 17 years. Williams was assisted by his son, who’d grown up in New Zealand from an early age and was fully bilingual.

According to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography entry compiled by James Fisher: “In preaching the Word, Williams focused on the use of te reo, spent many hours learning the language, including involvement in the monumental task of making Maori a written language and of translating the Bible into Maori. All teaching of the Maori was in te reo.”

So revisionist assertions that Williams and son had just a cursory understanding of the Maori language which proved inadequate to the task at hand are well and truly put to bed.

“Possession” in Busby’s final English draft became “tino rangatiratanga” in Te Tiriti. Since Article II also guaranteed tino rangatiratanga to non-Maori, in the context of the Treaty -- supported by back-reference to the final English draft -- that clearly meant “ownership.”

In Te Tiriti, the word “property” – again guaranteed to “all the people of New Zealand,” not just to “the chiefs, the tribes” -- was translated as “taonga.” Today that word has come to mean “treasures,” both tangible and intangible, including language and culture.

This blatant try-on would have astonished Sir Apirana Ngata. In his 1922 explanation of the Treaty, Ngata described “taonga” as applying to “this canoe, that taiaha, that kumara pit, that cultivation.” Not once did he hint that taonga included intangibles as claimed today by today’s race-hustlers and their liberal enablers.

Ngata was well-fluent in the Maori language and his explanation was consistent with Kendall and Lee's 1820 vocabulary, the Williams 1844 dictionary, and Frederick Maning's personal account of pre-Treaty New Zealand. Had anyone bothered to check these texts, they would have learnt that “taonga” meant goods, property, things, chattels, or in legal terms “personalty” [personal property].

F.E. (Frederick) Maning settled in Northland in 1833. He fathered four children to the sister of a Maori chief and later became a Judge of the Native Land Court. In his book Old New Zealand, Maning translates “taonga” as “Goods; property.”

Some years ago, researcher, Dennis Hampton, wrote to Auckland University’s Professor Andrew Sharp about this matter. In his book Justice and the Maori, Professor Sharp had observed that in 1840 the Maori language “was clearly not under threat, so how could it have been in anyone's mind as a thing needing protection?” He expressed even greater doubt about Maori cultural values.

Replying to Mr Hampton, Professor Sharp said “[E]ven if taonga could mean things such as language and culture, it was not being used that way in 1840. I entirely agree with you that what was being thought of was property, and the kind of property that could be held exclusively.”

The point of entry into the public square for the taonga myth appears to have been former Waitangi Tribunal member (and claimant), Sir Hugh Kawharu’s 1989 mischief-making back-translation into English of the Maori Treaty text, in which “taonga” in Article II was deliberately misrepresented as meaning “treasures,” when in context there’s no doubt it had a much narrower meaning.

What University of Canterbury law lecturer, David Round, refers to as a “portmanteau word” soon became a kete (flax basket) for anything Maori activists wanted to lay claim to in subsequent Waitangi Tribunal hearings. The Tribunal’s Kaituna River Report (1984) stated that “ratou taonga katoa” meant “all things highly prized.”

The Tribunal concluded in its Manukau Report (1985) that “Taonga” refers to more than physical objects of tangible value. “A river may be a taonga as a valuable resource. Its 'mauri' or 'life-force' is another taonga.”

Since the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 confers upon the Tribunal sole authority to determine the Treaty's meaning and intent, it didn't take long for word to get around and things to be invented.

In 1987 Parliament passed the Maori Language Act. Its preamble stated: “Whereas in the Treaty of Waitangi the Crown confirmed and guaranteed to the Maori people, among other things, all their taonga: And whereas the Maori language is one such taonga:”

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